Main Dishes

PART 1 The cold draft of the crumbling estate bit through the thin, threadbare fabric of my dress like invisible icy needles, carrying the harsh, metallic scent of damp wood, rust, and stale animal grease. I stood in the dim, cavernous kitchen, my hands blistered, peeling, and completely raw from scrubbing their endless mountain of…

PART 1 The coffee shop smelled of burnt espresso, harsh chemical cleaner, and broken dreams. It was a scent that clung to my oversized, moth-eaten wool sweater like a second skin. I pushed through the heavy glass door of the cafe at exactly six forty-seven in the morning, the freezing November wind whipping my pale…

PART 1 The letter from the matrimonial bureau had used the word “struggling” to describe my future husband’s ranch. I had read that word three times before I packed my brown leather trunk. I traced the black ink of the letters until they blurred, because “struggling” was a concept I understood intimately. It was a…

Part 1   The van had no plates. I noticed that first. Then the way the side door slid open just enough for a shadow to move inside, a girl’s shadow, shoulders curled inward, feet stumbling. Two men flanked her, hands gripping her elbows like she might bolt. She didn’t bolt. She moved the way…

Part 1   The rain hadn’t let up all morning. It hammered the tin roof of my garage like a thousand tiny fists, drowning out the radio and the scratch of Sophie’s pencil on her math homework. She sat at the little desk near the space heater, her dark hair falling over her face, the…

Part 1   The violinist was playing something soft, probably expensive, but all I could hear was the silence around that little girl. I’m Daniel Hayes, a single dad and a physical therapist. I wasn’t supposed to be at that party. Not really. I was just a plus-one in a room full of sharks, dragged…

PART 1 I still remember the exact sound my cheek made when her palm connected with it. Not a soft smack. Not something you could pretend was an accident. It was the kind of slap that fills a room, that makes conversations stop mid-sentence, that turns heads so fast you can hear necks crack. The…

PART 1 The mall smelled like chlorine and cinnamon. That weird combination of a pretzel stand too close to a janitor’s cart. I remember it because when your life shatters, your brain grabs onto stupid things. The cinnamon twists in the display case. The wet floor sign shaped like a yellow banana peel. The way…

PART 1 The sound of silk splitting is something you never forget. It is not a loud, chaotic noise. It is a soft, desperate, agonizing whisper. Like a secret being violently torn open in the dark. I stood paralyzed in the gilded hallway of the grand hotel, the air suffocatingly heavy with the cloying scent…

PART 1 The morning mist was still clinging to the surface of the lake when the first warning sign hit me. I was sitting in my aluminum boat, the gentle lapping of the water against the hull the only sound for miles. I had my favorite faded green baseball cap pulled low to block the…